She turned the phone off and stood in the kitchen, looking out the back window. She checked on Davy, who was still sitting happily in front of the TV, swaddled in a bundle of blankets with a bowl of Cheerios. Carefully he would lift one round circle of cereal up and put it in his mouth.
Arlene slipped away from him, then opened the back door and stepped outside. The air was raw, not quite freezing but threatening rain. She walked out back toward the pond. Soon the water would freeze over.
Standing in the rushes by the edge of the pond, she threw that damn phone as far as she could into the murky water. Its entry made a satisfying plop and she watched it sink.
Once back in the house, Arlene wiped down the counters of the kitchen. She couldn’t leave the house as long as Jared was still sleeping. For that matter, she couldn’t leave it when he woke up. She didn’t trust him alone.
When the wall phone rang, she jumped, then regained her composure and answered it.
She recognized Amy’s voice again, this time telling her that a body had been discovered in the rubble of the trailer. Probably a
woman. All her clothes burned off. Pretty unrecognizable. Amy asked her the name of her sister’s dentist.
Arlene leaned over the kitchen counter and almost started to laugh. “She doesn’t have a dentist. She hardly has any teeth left. God, Amy, she was a meth addict.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Then the woman said, “Yeah, I see. This information might help us.”
“I’m sure it’s my sister,” Arlene said.
“We’ll check into it.”
“I’m sure.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry,” Arlene said, then realized she was being churlish. “I mean, thanks, but she wasn’t having much of a life lately.”
Arlene sat down on the living room floor next to Davy and watched Teletubbies. She found the slow movements of the colorful round creatures very soothing, the childish voices calming. Sometimes she turned the show on when she was home all alone and didn’t know where Jared was.
She looked up at the family portrait that had been taken five years ago. They had been four: her husband Jeff, Jared and Julie. A perfect family—the right number of kids, a boy and a girl. They all got along. Jeff died the next summer. Collapsed of an aneurysm. Julie went off to college in New York, far away. Arlene missed her constantly, she was such a good kid. Just her and Jared left. And now Davy. She was glad Jeff hadn’t been alive to see what was happening to Jared. But maybe if he were still alive Jared wouldn’t have started doping.
Maybe this time she could help Jared.
She pulled Davy into her lap, his soft sweet body giving her comfort, and watched plump gentle creatures bounce around an imaginary landscape.
***
After reading the same paragraph over three times, Claire realized she couldn’t focus on her work. All she could think about was Meg and how she was not handling this crisis. Her daughter was in a difficult time of life anyway—the early teenage years—when it feels like your skin has been pulled off your body. Very vulnerable. And now her best friend had jumped off a cliff.
What it boiled down to was that her daughter was blaming herself for her friend’s death and there was nothing Claire could do about it.
Meg would hardly talk to her. As far as Claire knew, she would hardly talk period. All Meg had done, the whole weekend, was curl up in bed and pretend she was sleeping. She had even refused to talk to her friend Curt when he had called.
Claire was jarred out of her thoughts when the phone on her desk rang. She picked it up before it rang again and said her name.
Without any hello, the male voice on the phone stated, “Got the results on the toxicology report on that young girl—Krista Jorgenson.”
The call surprised Claire. She had almost forgotten that they routinely run those tests on accidental deaths and that she had requested they call her with the results.
Claire grabbed a post-it note. “Okay. Shoot.” “Alcohol level .05. Methamphetamine came in at .04 milligrams per liter of blood.”
Claire’s hand wrote .05. Then it stopped. “What?” “She had some meth in her.”
“Are you sure?” Claire stood up and almost pulled the phone off her desk. “I can’t believe that.” “Did you know her?” “Yeah. Pretty well.”
Claire remembered Krista dancing in the kitchen. Meg and she had come over to the house to make chocolate chip cookies. They had put on some music and were dancing around the kitchen, eating the dough while the cookies baked. It seemed to Claire that Krista had never stopped moving. Why would she need to use methamphetamines with that kind of energy?
“How much is that? .04?”
“A healthy dose.”
“Probably her first time,” Claire said, defending Krista. “Then it would have hit her pretty hard.” “Yeah, I guess so.” Claire was standing. “Can you fax me this info?”
“You got it.”
As Claire left the sheriff’s department, she told the secretary she would be gone the rest of the afternoon. She jumped in her squad car and headed west on 25, then south on 35. She pulled up to the high school before two o’clock. Meg would still be in her last hour class.
Claire walked into the main office and asked that they pull her daughter out of class. The secretary called down to the room without asking why. Claire stepped out into the hallway to meet her.
She saw her daughter coming toward her with her lime-green backpack hanging off one shoulder and her feet dragging.
Meg stopped in front of her. She looked tired and anxious. “Mom, what are you doing here?”
“You want to go outside?”
“No.”
“I have to tell you something.”
Meg’s face started to twist. “Not anything bad?”
“Let’s step outside.”
“Mom,” Meg pleaded.
Claire took her daughter by the arm, led her gently out the school door, then into the squad car.
Once they were seated Claire said, “Krista’s death had nothing to do with you. It’s starting to look like it might not exactly have been a suicide. I got the toxicology report back on Krista. She had an alcohol level of .05.”
“So. She had a couple beers.”
“There’s more. The bloodwork showed that she had methamphetamine in her system.”
“What?” “Meth.”
“I know, Mom. I know what it is. But no way. Not Krista. She never did any drugs. Ever. And I would know.”
Claire asked, “How would you know for sure?”
“Because we talked about it. Sure, she drank a beer or two. What kid around here doesn’t? But she didn’t even like any other alcohol and she had never tried any other kind of drug. Just like me. She told me that.”
“Okay. I believe you. But she did have it in her system. Something happened to make her take it.”
“Why would she do that?” Meg asked, then slammed her backpack to the floor of the car. “Fuck.” Claire couldn’t stop herself. “Meg.”
“Double fuck.” Meg kicked her backpack with her foot. “I can’t believe this. Where did she get it?”
“I thought maybe you could tell me.”
“How would I know? Not at the party. As far as I know no one had any meth there.”
“Was there anyone there you didn’t know?”
Meg sat still for a moment. “I think a car drove up as we were leaving. I’m not sure. I was upset by Krista’s reaction to what I had just told her.”
“Maybe she hooked up with someone later.”
“But why would she do that? She wouldn’t have gone off with just anyone. Krista wasn’t dumb.”
“Maybe it was someone she knew, and trusted.”
Meg shook her head. “I still can’t believe she’s dead.”
“I know.”
They sat quietly for a minute or so.
“Is it always like this, Mom, when someone dies? How long does it take to believe it? That they’re dead?”
Claire took care with her answer. “It is a slow process. You never lose the person. They slowly become someone you can no longer have in your life.”
“I don’t want this to be happening. I would do anything to make it be three days ago when Krista and I were getting ready for the party.”
“Yeah, I know.” Claire started the car. “I’m going out to tell her parents. Whoever gave her the methamphetamine would be considered responsible for her death.”
Meg grabbed her backpack and opened the door. “She should have been with me. Then she’d be alive.”
She scrambled out of the car, then turned back and said, “It’s still my fault.”
A
my climbed into the big orange safety overalls. They were clumsy to work in, but mandatory in a situation like this. She walked away from her squad car feeling as if she were enveloped in a paper bag. Maybe this was how women felt in those burquas—lost and flopping around.
The overalls made a crinkly noise when she walked. They reminded her of wearing a pumpkin costume for Halloween. The face mask was already fogging up and causing her to sweat. But she knew she needed to wear it to protect herself as she was digging in the remains of the trailer. Even with the mask on, as she walked closer to the site, she could smell the distinctive cat-pee reek of a meth lab.
The proliferation of methamphetamines had changed how the police worked—made everything harder and more dangerous. She shuddered when she thought of herself standing on the edge of the yard two days ago, watching the trailer burn. She didn’t want to know what carcinogens she had breathed in just standing there.
Not to mention the firefighters who were on the scene. The county couldn’t afford to get them the safety equipment they needed. Plus when you rush to a fire how do you know it’s going
to turn out to be a meth house. They can look like the cutest little cottage in the country. More often a trashed-out trailer, but you never knew.
Amy stood on the edge of the burn zone and looked down at the scorched outlines of where the trailer had been, only some of the exterior walls still standing. She could make out the rooms as if a pretend house had been drawn on the ground. Her assignment was to pick out any salvageable pieces of cooking equipment and bag it to send to forensics.
As she walked in to the remains of the trailer, she wondered what she was looking for and why. What more would they learn from this conflagration? It was obvious what had been going on in the small trailer.
Amy could easily imagine the scenario—Letty brewing up a batch of meth, probably puts the lid on too tight and the pot of chemicals blows catching the kitchen on fire. The fire gets out of control, happens so fast she can’t get out of the trailer. Or worse she stays and tries to save the meth because she needs it so badly, not wanting to call for help because she doesn’t want to get arrested.
There had been no call from the scene. The firefighters had been alerted by a neighbor driving by who had seen the fire.
Thank god Letty’s little boy had been staying at Arlene’s. The only thing that made Letty a good mom was the sense to get that kid out of the trailer when she was making meth so he hadn’t died too.
The metal of the stove was scorched black but discernible up against the front wall of the trailer. A large stainless steel pot was turned upside down by the door. That must have been what she had been using to cook the meth.
Amy stepped out of the charred remains of the trailer and walked back toward the woods. If this scene were like other meth houses, she knew what she would find. She didn’t have to walk far. Not even into the woods. Right in the middle of the field she found garbage bags full of meth debris: old jugs and bottles, used rubber gloves, gas cans, old boxes of Sudafed, camper fluid. Mixed in were dirty diapers, empty beer cans, and paper plates with crusted moldy food.
After ripping a bag or two open, Amy decided she had seen enough. It was time to call in hazardous-materials specialists from the state. She knew they would dispose of this stuff in special landfills.
As Amy walked back to the car, she thought about Letty, who she had known since they were in their teens, although Letty was older than her. Letty didn’t seem strong enough or smart enough to brew up a batch of methamphetamines by herself. Plus, the woman never did anything unless there was a guy involved.
Only one body had been found in the trailer, but Amy didn’t believe that Letty had been alone.
***
Jared woke with his body as stiff as a board, all his muscles tight with the need for some crank.
Waking up is hardly what he would call his entrance back into the world—it felt more like he had been dropped full belly flop onto rock-hard ground, his whole body screaming in pain.
Two days without any meth, the longest he had been without in awhile. The only reason he made it that long was that he had slept most of the time. The only thought he had was how to get some meth.
If he could crawl out of bed, he felt like he would do anything to get it.
Where was Hitch? That was the question. Jared knew of a couple other guys that might be able to get him some crank, but they were neither reliable nor easy to get hold of. He needed to find Hitch.
He held up his hands and saw how thin and bruised they were, saw how they shook like aspen leaves in a light breeze. He couldn’t deal with that now. He couldn’t believe how much he hurt. His head pounded until it felt like his brain would burst out of his skull, all his muscles ached, and his feet throbbed.
Then he got hit with a really horrible thought—Hitch might well have skipped the county, the state for that matter. Lately, he had been complaining about the Mexicans coming in and taking over his territory, selling imported meth for less than he could make it.
This thought poked at Jared until he sat up in bed and then tried to stand, but he couldn’t seem to move his feet. He crashed to the floor.
Seconds later his mother pushed open the door. Davy peeked around her legs. The two of them stared at him from the doorway.
“Was at?” Davy asked, pointing at him.
His mother patted the little boy’s head reassuringly. “You know him. That’s your cousin, Jared.”
“Was matter?”
“He’s not feeling so good I’d guess.”
His mother came and bent over him, putting an arm under his elbow. She helped him back onto the bed. Thank god he was wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt. He hated for her to see him like this, but at least he wasn’t naked.